Spiritus Astrum has now been in Early Access for a week.

The launch was somewhat rocky, to say the least. There were substantially more bugs in the game than I realised, and I picked up some negative reviews and comments because of that.

Once I discovered the issues that players were having with the game, I decided that I would make the Early Access period free, rather than paid, and I made an announcement to this effect on steam.

Unfortunately, Steam support has told me that I cannot change the price of a newly released game for at least 30 days, and so the game will remain paid until then.

On the plus side, the community response has been extremely supportive, with a large number of people buying the game even after I announced that it would become free just because they wanted to support me! I find this very encouraging, and I am very grateful for this support.

The focus now is to continue to work on the game, and fix the bugs that have been reported.

The most common issues reported seem to be issues with logging in. These were caused by a combination of confusing UI design and the game server being blocked by users firewall and network security settings.

There were also some issues with saving and loading not working correctly.

I am confident that most of these issues have been fixed.

There is still quite a lot of work to do, but the game is in Early Access, and I am confident that if the community continues to report bugs and issues then I can solve them quickly.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-EA1]: p1672: Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Play on steam now: Spiritus Astrum on Steam

The game is in Early Access, please report any bugs or issues either on the steam forum or by email: bugreports@phoenixgamedevelopment.com

The post Spiritus Astrum Early Access is Live! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Spiritus Astrum will be launching into EA early tomorrow, the 14th September.

The base price of the game is 4.99 USD, and there is a 25% launch discount for the first 14 days.

There may be some bugs and issues with the EA release, especially in the first few days and weeks, but I am confident that the game is ready for EA.

I am very grateful to my beta testers for finding several bugs, which have already been fixed.

I have also created a test branch for Spiritus Astrum, which will hopefully make deploying any needed fixed quicker and safer in the future.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-EA1]: p1671: 1 Day Left Until Early Access! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have just finished a new trailer for the Early Access Release of Spiritus Astrum (Releasing on September 14th!) , demonstrating just some of the content and features that are available in the game!

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-EA1]: p1670: Early Access Trailer first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I am just a week away from the EA release of Spiritus Astrum.

I have added some new weapons and effects, as well as some upgrades and improvements to the valkyrie fighter in the third campaign.

I have also made some minor quality of life improvements to the game, including adding more lights, etc, to some of the capital ships.

I am now working on some final debugging, and on a new trailer for the game. There have been extensive improvements since the last trailer, so I think it’s time for a new one.

I did find some minor issues while gathering footage from the trailer, but these should be fixed in a day or so.

The last major issue is the price. I am still not sure what price I want to set for Spiritus Astrum.

It will either be 4.99 USD, or free.

The goal with the project is not to make a profit, however my concern is that if I release the game for free, people will think it’s low quality, or full of microtransactions, upsells, etc (Which it isn’t).

I will decide on a final price very shortly.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-EA1]: p1669: Final Preparations For Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

After many hours of work, I believe that Spiritus Astrum is finally ready to meet the world.

I have recently passed by steam build review, and I have decided on a release date.

The Early Access release should be coming out on September 14th, 2026.

There is still a lot of work to do before the project is fully done, and I intend to add more and more features to it for as long as I can, but the project is stable enough and has enough content for an EA release.

I am not 100% sure what the price will be for the game yet.

I am currently debating between making it free or charging a small fee.

I will post an update when I decide on the pricing.

I also have access to some steam keys which I can use to allow beta testers to play the game early.

If anyone would like a steam key, please contact me.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1668: Early Access Release Date Announced! first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Spiritus Astrum has passed its steam build review!

This means that it is ready for release.

I had some very minor issues with the build review (Steam weren’t happy with the web browser that was included in the game) so I had to delay the intended release by about a week, but there were no major issues.

I will make another post about the release date, but it’s set for September 14th (And not the 7th as I said in the previous post that I made).

This week, I also added different projectile effects to each of the gun types for the valkyrie fighter, and I made some improvements to the way that the main menu gui is displayed in shuttles.

I also improved the console code to allow it to be interacted with while the player in inside a shuttle too.

Finally, I am working on a whole new GUI for the Valkyrie fighter, that shows missile/gun status, threat status, etc. This should be done in a day or so.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1667: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have added the ability to fire guided missiles from the rocket launcher.

Left click fires a standard unguided missile, right click now fires a slower missile that can be guided using the WASD keys. It has a camera mounted on board that can be viewed using a screen on the launcher, and the missile can also be manually detonated by right clicking again.

The video below shows off this new feature.

I have also made some minor improvements to the game, and fixed a few minor issues.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1666: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

Spiritus Astrum is very, very close to an Early Access release.

I made a post earlier this week announcing a release date in September. I actually removed this post, because my game build has not yet passed the build review (It is currently in the queue) and the steam team advised me that an early September data may not be achievable, depending on how long it takes for the game to pass the build review.

So, I can’t announce an exact date yet, but I am hoping that it the game should be in early access within a month or so, depending on the build review (There may be bugs, etc, that I need to fix).

I am not 100% sure what the price will be for the game yet.

I am currently debating between making it free or charging a small fee.

I will post an update when I decide on the pricing.

I also have access to some steam keys which I can use to allow beta testers to play the game early.

If anyone would like a steam key, please contact me.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1665: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.

I have added quite a few more traits and skills to the game, as well as tested and improved the skill gui menu and adjusted the exp requirements for the different skill levels.

I have also added a stamina bar, which prevents the player from sprinting continuously.

I have cleaned up the console prints on the client and server, and removed some unneeded debugging statements.

I have created a clean build of the game, and tested it, there don’t seem to be any major issues.

Pressing F12 now automatically saves a screen shot to the build directory.

Finally, I have added a simple admin script to allow me to save the server state, send messages to all connected players, kick/ban, etc.

The Early Access release is basically done now, I just need to prepare the master server for launch, and do some final testing. Once I upload the build to steam, I may do a limited pre-EA release using steam keys to grant access.

The post Spiritus Astrum [P0-B14]: p1664: Towards Early Access first appeared on Phoenix Game Development.